Author's Note: And here's Jade's chapter. Few more chapters like these, a time skip and then it's the final fight. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 121: The Blunt Hero's Demon Hunt
Jade was watching the monkey like man out in the courtyard spar with himself, changing the size of his staff weapon, producing clones and most familiarly of all shifting between a number of forms including insects, snakes, and bison to both dodge and attack.
"You remind me of a monkey I used to know." Jade commented watching Wukong dance around his opponent like water flowing around rocks.
"He is the monkey you used to know." Naofumi stated walking up behind Jade. "The Original owner of the power of shape shifting possessed by the Monkey Talisman is right over there." Jade looked legitimately surprised by the statement.
"Where did the other powers come from?" Jade asked looking at the monkey man as he fought himself.
"Training. Come on, there's a mess that needs cleaning up." Jade followed Naofumi to another room, where a holographic projection of something familiar with Jade was floating above a table. A blue and gold Octahedronal puzzle box with eight Trigram symbols engraved into either end of the box for Mountain, Thunder, Moon, Sky, Wind, Earth, Fire and Water.
"And what does the Pan'Ku Box have to do with anything?" Jade asked looking at the box suspiciously.
"If you don't find it, your world is in trouble." Naofumi informed bluntly.
"Say what?" Jade asked sounding concerned.
"You never used it to open the last portal, even if you had you're working off of the presumption that each portal can only be opened one time. Furthermore, you're thinking the box was made with good intentions behind it." Naofumi stated looking down at Jade who raised a suspicious brow.
"The Box was created to seal away the eight Demon Sorcerors that used to rule my world." Jade stated making her suspicions known.
"Did you use it to seal them away? Even one of them?" Naofumi asked glaring down at Jade who opened her mouth, failed to say anything, then closed it again. "Who was the one to use the box to unseal the demon sorcerer's?" Jade's eyes went wide. "Being made out of good magic doesn't stop it from being used by bad people, for that matter it also doesn't mean that it has to be made by good people with good intentions either." Right. Dao Long Wong's knowledge of Good Chi Magic exceeded even Uncle's in certain areas, it was how they were able to reseal Shendu the second time and restore all the talismans as a byproduct. "For now, I suggest you track down the extremely dangerous magical artefact with the power to open a hole into a cage full of monsters that your family has spent a couple of months trying to track down before they get loose again. I suspect they might be upset about that."
"Um exactly who is dumb enough to go messing around with that super dangerous demon spawning puzzle box?" Jade asked sounding concerned.
"Can you think of no one?" Naofumi asked looking directly at Jade suspiciously. "Specifically can you think of no one that might in that super dangerous demon spawning puzzle box?"
Jade thought about it for a moment, then her eyes went wide in horror.
"Kyo..." Kyo would absolutely not hesitate to strike a deal with those sorcerer bastards to send his disembodied soul over the boarder and have him track down the Pan'Ku box to let those asshole's out of their cage. "But the portal can only fit one individual at a time!" Jade desperately reasoned looking terrified.
"And if the portal can be forced to stay open longer? Say for example by an expert in breaching the barriers between worlds? Or worse if the portal holding them back is broken permanently?" Naofumi asked again and Jade gulped in audible horror. "Good. Now that we have that through your head you need to make preparations to go back, or else you're going to have a lot of trouble on your hands when you get there."
"But Kyo already has a head start! I mean he's been in that world for months!"
"In the demon prison? Yes. But until you get back there your world is temporally locked meaning that even if he's been sent over there he can't do nothing until you get back too. Meaning that you have plenty of time to get a counter measure put in order to beat them." Naofumi grabbed two things, a violin case and several dagger sheath's before indicating for Jade to follow him.
Progress among the Vassal weapons was going smoothly, after sixteen rounds of soul surgery everyone was now working on building up the power of their weapons. Break down all the weapons that have lost their effects from being separated from their world, convert that into a massive amount of reinforcement material, use that material to strengthen the transformations related to the Sacred Gears, repeat that process until even without the god killing monster inside the Sacred Gear is able to reach the same level of power as what the original had. While the others were able to perform this process in between weapon transformations there were two that had barely made any progress with this, that being Kyurie and Rishia, whose weapons had to deal with such a massive overload of transformations that they weren't even usable.
"Kyurie, put your weapon inside of this." The Default form of Kyurie's weapon was a Violin, hence it fit quite nicely inside of the Violin's case Naofumi prepared. "Rishia sheath those things inside of these." Naofumi handed Rishia a bandoleer of dagger sheaths. "Don't put your fingers inside of them."
The two heroes did as they were told and waited a moment, when they were about to ask what they were for they watched as the sea of weapon transformations disappeared like a tide swallowing the beach. Thanks to acquiring weapon transformations from the other heroes Rishia and Kyurie both had over ten million possible transformations, now they only had a handful of them.
"What just happened?" Kyurie asked looking concerned.
"Time magic, billions of years just went by for those things." Naofumi informed the duo bluntly.
However Rishia was staring in awestruck horror at something else.
'! #$%^&*() M'
"What does that mean?" There wasn't even a any decipherable language left inside of the weapon where the Projectile of Justice use to be, just a stretch of nonsense. Exactly how cursed had this thing become?
"What's the last digit?" Naofumi asked looking interested.
"M?" Rishia stated looking deeply concerned, and it got even worse when she saw the look of pity Naofumi was giving her. "Why are you looking at me like that!? What does it mean!?"
"1000." Naofumi stated bluntly, Rishia's face went pale in horror. Then like a erupting volcano the weapon transformations started to spike, the millions of materials quickly being put to use to reinforce the handful of weapons that Rishia actually used as part of her Balance Breaker and other useful transformations stopping only when it reached the limited of what Rishia could handle of weapon transformations.
"It would seem that my power is advancing even further!" Kyurie watched his own weapon transformations disappear under the influence of a great tide only for a handful of instruments to receive reinforcements from the countless materials.
Millions of useless weapons traded in for dozens of extremely powerful ones, a fine trade if Kyurie has ever seen one. Kyurie's weapon emerged from the case, not as a violin but rather as a floating horned skull the weapon jewel lodged in a third eye socket of the demonic skull, which admittedly was a little strange pick for a musical instrument.
"Howdy there." The Skull spoke in a charming southern accent. "Preciate having the time to work, and the snack, but I admit I'm feeling a little out of tune. Gimme a sec." The Skull started to, of all things hum, after a few moments the humming turned into a tune, one the skull was visibly nodding to the beat of. "There we go."
"Greetings my dark friend." Kyurie stated simply to the skull. "I fear we have not been introduced. I am Kyurie Vampyr, of the Shieldfrieden Vampire tribe."
"Pleasure meeting yah Kyurie. I'm a lil fuzzy on the details, you can think of me as a sort of... sheet music to the gods." The Skull which was also the Vassal Musical Instrument explained cordially.
"Sheet music?" Kyurie asked confused.
"Quite. See the universe has what you call a... Beat to it, like music. Actions done in time to the beat becomes stronger, and stronger still if you can chain it together. Back in the day me and my partner were part of the Chorus to god before we had what you call a... disagreement." Which might explain both why he looked like a demon and why he had been reduced to just a skull. "Now I know you kids might not wanna believe me what with me being a demon and all that..."
"I believe you." Kyurie stated bluntly.
"Yah do?" The Skull looked genuinely surprised.
"This whole place is about killing a god, so your story only makes sense." Kyurie explained in simple terms.
"Well now that's mighty cordial of yah." The Skull stated appreciation clear in it's charming accent. "Course I can't exactly say the same thing for the others. I'm not exactly sure where they came from now but there seems to be a bunch of other voices in here too." Kuro's Noble Phantasms, given to the various different heroes and reworked into musical instruments they should probably assume, whenever a weapon suddenly gains sentience Kuro is usually to blame.
Finally, with great trepidation Rishia pulled out a throwing dagger and looked at it with horror.
"""Where is the Sword Hero?""" Rishia's weapon spoke with a thousand voices, as if it had distilled thousands of grudges into a singular concentrated form as the embodiment of spite itself.
"Back on her home world. I doubt that even you can reach her now." Naofumi stated bluntly.
"""Want to bet?"""
"Please don't make any bets!" Rishia shouted in terror.
"And how about you?" Naofumi asked looking at the Violin that the skull had turned into.
"The 'Instrument of Humility.'" Kyurie replied as he scratched his head. "Well that's what the first one says, it gets kind of hard to understand after a while."
"""Please do not feed this violin anymore transformations.""" The vassal Musical instrument spoke with a legion of voices too, but his sounded more like thousands of voices were collectively begging for mercy.
"No promises." Naofumi stated as Rishia just continued to become paler and paler. "Alright everyone Rishia's about to lose control of her weapon again. Get ready to dump a mountain of violence on her head."
"Why are you dumping violence on my head!" Rishia shrieked as she asked.
"""Preparing Rainbow Bridge Sequence"""
"DUMP THE VIOLENCE ON MY HEAD!" Rishia shrieked in a panic. Rishia's entire body glowed but Naofumi just casually cast Mirror prison on her and stopped the attempt dead in its tracks.
"That should hold her for a few minutes. Come up with a strategy to keep her contained until I get back."
"Wait you're just dumping her on them?" Jade asked indicating the box of Mirror's Naofumi just dumped on them.
"Dumping implies that they can't handle it." Naofumi corrected as the other fifteen vassals proceeded to pile onto Rishia to keep her from leaving. "You have your own problems to worry about."
"Lemme handle this one boss." Wukong appeared behind Jade and put his hand on her shoulder. "After all she's an old friend." And then Jade was pushed into herself.
Jade was treated to the sound of some musical instrument playing off to the side. Jade wandered over to the source of the music where she found a bald pretty looking monk like person who was playing a stringed instrument of some kind. Jade didn't know what it was called but considering the fact that this was her soul world thing and it looked vaguely Chinese she probably should.
"You aren't going to introduce yourself?" The Monk asked looking at Jade with suspicious eyes. "Jade Chan, but I'm betting you already knew that since this is my inner world after all. Who are, or rather were you though?"
"Hmm. Xuanzang, you know me as the Chosen one though." Jade's face made a confused scrunched as she slowly realised what was going on.
"As in... that cult that guilted Toru into posing as their messiah? The one that repelled Dao Long Wong with their good chi? The people who were worshipping a yak of all things as their saviour!?" Jade asked looking dumb founded. "That Chosen one!?"
"Not my proudest moment no. I'd rather be remembered as the Wise Monk Xuanzang." The pretty looking monk commented as they continued to play on the instrument.
"I have no idea who that is." Jade stated as she sat down and pouted. The monk suddenly stopped playing and let out a sigh.
"Journey to the West. Sun Wukong was my body guard alongside the pig man Zhu Bajie and the banished heavenly general Sha Wujing."
"I would've rather been Wukong's reincarnation." Jade complained while resting her head in her hand.
"Of course you remember who he is..." Xuanzang stated as they rubbed their temples and let out a sigh. "Just... pick out one of those and put them one me so that you can go back and finish what you're supposed to." Jade looked to the pile of ceremonial beads, then back to the monk, picked one set up and put them around her shoulders before leaving.
Jade wasn't positive, but the sound of various musical instruments going off in her ears wasn't a good sign. When she awoke both Kyurie and Rishia were doing battle with each other. Rishia looked like she was possessed, eyes glowing with a foreign golden power, one half of her body was dressed in a black suit whilte the other a golden mechanical armour, from which various bolts of lightning coming down from the sky to strike at Kyurie. Kyurie on the other hand was backed up by a variable orchestra, Gongs, Harps, Musical saws, Microphone stands being sung by several spirit like figures, as well as Tesla Spheres, Whistles and Jade's very own Hunting Horns, each of them in a different element, all of them synchronising their power together in order to overwhelm their enemy with sheer brute force.
"They don't need my help do they?" Jade asked suspiciously.
"They may appreciate it, but it's not necessary." Naofumi informed helpfully before he tossed Jade a golf bag.
"Another time bag?" Jade asked looking at Naofumi concerned.
"They have years to build up their power, you may not." Naofumi replied bluntly.
Well, Jade can't argue with that, she stuck her weapon into the bag and watched as millions of weapon transformations were rapidly dwindled down into a handful of weapons.
"The Club of Fire, The Club of Water, The Club of Wood, The Club of Metal and the Warrior." Jade noticed a certain theme regarding the clubs that were left.
"What did you expect? Thousands of different materials have been shoved into those things, and me." The fifth club, the Warrior answered from within Jade's weapon, to put it another way Jade's Sacred Gear, the one from which the power of earth would flow into metal, then water, wood, fire and back into earth. A complete cycle to increase Jade's power to the limit.
"Focus." Naofumi stated bluntly. "Start with whoever had the damned box last and work from there. You have friends working inside the government right, I suggest you use them."
"Good, but first would a box of Donuts be too much to ask for?" Jade asked and Naofumi cocked a suspicious brow.
Section Thirteen had been destroyed, thanks to Strike Master Ice and his fellow cronies antics the entire five story deep facility had been reduced to a massive pit of rubble. All of the Section Thirteen agents had been temporarily left homeless, including Jade's uncle and herself. The lot of them were being put up all expenses paid at a Three Star Hotel, reaching Captain Black's room was as easy as walking down the hall, and getting inside was as easy as flashing a box of donuts in front of the peephole.
"Where'd you get donuts like these?" Captain Black reasonably suspected that he was eating the best Donuts he'd ever had or will ever have, Naofumi's cooking bonuses will have that effect.
"I bought them at a food cart near the school. Support the local community and all that." Jade stated while laying flat on her stomach as she prepared to get down to business. "But with all the demon stuff that happened at the stadium a thought occurred: did we ever find out what happened to the Pan'Ku box?" Black stopped eating donuts at that, half eaten donut in his hand. "I mean it still has one last demon portal it can open up. It was locked to Shendu last time I checked." Black dropped the donut. "Of course you nabbed the box after that too." Black immediately picked up a nearby phone, which both was and wasn't the reaction that Jade was hoping for.
"I need a all points bulletin on The Pan'Ku box..." Indecipherable questions from the phone was Black's answer. "It's a blue puzzle box with chinese lettering on the side." More indecipherable bits that Jade couldn't hear. "Because it opens up a bunch of demon portals that's why!" Jade was able to understand the next response, mocking laughter. "The two bastard's who had a grudge match in the middle of San Francisco that's who!" Black snapped while Jade prepared her own strike, and wrote out a suggestion on a piece of sketch paper. "Forget about it. Find out where Valmont is!"
The Phrase 'How the mighty have fallen' may be an appropriate description here. Valmont used to be the head of one of the biggest if not the biggest criminal syndicates in the entire world, and it all rapidly began to go downhill after he met that accursed block of stone. He couldn't even blame Chan for destroying his life by always beating him to the Talisman's, Shendu never intended to hold up to his end of the bargain they made in the first place, and then even as a disembodied ghost the accursed creature hijacked his body and held it hostage forcing him to spend his remaining life savings on chasing down even more accursed demons! Then despite that Valmont was the one stupid enough to keep involving himself in demon non-sense including getting himself possessed by one. It said something that Valmont's living conditions were basically the same after San Francisco was destroyed as before it was. If Captain Black was to appear before him Valmont would throw himself at his feet and demand to be sent back to jail.
Cue the door of the Homeless shelter being kicked open and being stormed by a group of Section 13 agents.
So according to Valmont the Pan'Ku box was sold on the black market, a final attempt by Valmont to reclaim his countless lost assets, the one who bought it someone who would ironically enough quickly take the title as number one criminal in the world: Bartholomew Chang. Finding Bartholomew was actually faster than finding Valmont had been, after all 'Maximum Security Juevinile Detention Center' was rarely a series of words one strings together. After running afoul of one of the spells Jade stole from her uncle Chang and his lieutenants were 'cut down to size' as it were. How small had they become? They should be old enough to attend Preschool in another year. Even as a child Chang was still a master negotiator, he successfully obtained a new identity when he became old enough for a social security number. Chang sold the Pan'Ku box as part of another of his enterprises, he had given it to a man by the name of Yip as part of a trade for several clones made in the image of the bunch of people who had ruined his initial criminal empire and acquiring powerful enforcers as a added bonus. Sadly Yip was much harder to find.
"The Pan'Ku box is in the hands of a Dark Chi sorcerer!?" Jackie damn near shouted at the top of his lungs in response to the explanation given to him by Captain Black.
"And it's set to our old pal Shendu." Captain Black stated letting out a sigh. "You may remember him. Giant scary Demon Dragon thing, has a bunch of ancient Zodiac Talisman's lodged in his body granting him incredible power. Gained minor celebrity status after videos of him wrestling his demonic offspring through a demon portal went viral on the internet?"
"What's this about the Internet catching a Shendu virus!?" Uncle shouted walking in from his private library.
"Do we have a way of tracking down the Pan'Ku box?" Jackie asked his uncle suspiciously. "I'd like to get ahead of the next magic crisis before we're sent on a planet wide tour trying to collect them all again." Jackie stated as he let out a defeated sigh, somehow feeling like he just summed up his next several months.
"I feel like we're missing the obvious solution here." Jade stated as she picked up a familiar picture frame. "If we know what this Yip guy is going to do with the Box then we know where he's going to go to do it." Jade stated as she held up a nearby picture frame, one depicting the entire family outing to Moose World Hong Kong the day they sealed up the last of the demon portals.
"Right, the last demon portal." Jackie stated letting out a sigh. "Then all of this can just end by posting Section Thirteen agents around Moose World to keep him away." Jackie let out a huge sigh of relief. "Is that ever a load of my mind!"
Jade's eye twitched.
"So is this the part we're you're going to pretend this has nothing to do with you and try and stay as far away from it as possible and keep the rest of us out of it too?" Jade asked letting out a sigh, sometimes her uncle was honestly... kind of pathetic.
"Jade I am an archaeologist! Black is a government agent! Let him deal with this madness!"
"Huu." Jade just let out a sigh. She didn't have time for this. "Then this is the time where I reveal that I've done the thing that I do every few months and reveal that I've been practising magic behind everyone's back again." Jade pulled out a tactical Baton, held it out to the side, and then had it glow and transform into the form of a giant hammer with a Dragon's Hour Glass for a head. Then Jade disappeared into thin air.
"Well." Torhu's massive frame lowered itself to the spot that Jade was at before she disappeared. "That was unexpected."
Jade appeared next to an empty building, while Black had been busy chasing leads Jade met up with her fellow co-conspirator from the world of Babel, Wukong here where she planted a portal location.
"Your uncles aren't going to be upset with you?" Wukong asked looking at Jade suspiciously.
"I'm going to be grounded until I graduate. But I have the other world to travel to in order to satisfy my craving for adventure." Jade stated letting out a sigh. Aw well, it's not the first time she's stared down a hoard of demonic sorcerers before. "What about this thing? Can we beat them to Moose World with it?" Jade asked indicating the golden Cloud Wukong had been sitting on.
"You underestimate me Monk." Wukong stated smirking nastily. "Some things never change I guess."
"Tell me about it." Jade picked up a copy of Journey to the West from the Library. "How Ironic, I'm the irresponsible one here and you're looking after me."
Wukong just shoved himself and Jade into the cloud, then the two of them rocketed forward across the sea towards Europe which they would fly over to China. Jade liked being able to watch TV, it's a shame that her uncles are going to delete all the channels but the news at this rate.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: True. *Looks back at April Fool's one shot posted over two years ago that I never intended to make into a full story* Exceeded them.
Illya Emiya: Yes, but later and her family will be able to visit more often.
Nightshadegirl: As a standalone series? Yes, there is however some severe continuity snarls that at the risk of going into spoilers is being caused by the shenanigans of a time manipulating wizard, and a lot of the episodes are about retreading the events of the original series.
coolkid0806: Glad you liked it. Not counting the Filler arcs there's Battle City and The Ancient Egypt RPG in the original series, in GX there's the Egyptian God Cards back up dancers, The 'Darkness in Light' debacle, Yubel's whole deal, and the embodiment of darkness. That's at least six apocalypses and Chazz has been caught in four of them. All of the Heroes of Courage were made available to Naofumi. In the highly unlikely event that one of those people actually manages to resolve his situation Naofumi can focus on actually being a decent human being again instead of going around pandering to omniscient assholes. Now for the part you've been waiting for: God's Chat Online!
*One Above All: So has the brat come to bother you guys too?
*Will of the World: Yeah, grabbed a bunch of people from some worlds I was gonna write off and outlined a plan to fix my counter guardian's for me.
*Aphrodite: So basically someone is going around to different worlds taking people you don't care about and fixing your most immediate problems for you? Why hasn't he come to see me yet?
Dakota Bruder: Earth, Water, Wind, Fire, Wood, Time are basically 'the same but better' the Thunder is the Lightning cause correct terminology, Sword is Sabre, Fight is Lancer, Arrow is Archer, Shield is Shielder, Power is Berserker, Shadow is Hunter, Fly is Rider, Move is Space, Sweet is Metamorphosis, Flower is Poison, there's also a bunch of original cards and several redundancies that have been fused together.
EnergeticBeet: If literally the first thing that happened to Kuro in this story wasn't to have that issue resolved then yes probably.